This invention relates to a corrugated paperboard carton blank and carton, known in the trade as a tray for packaging bottles, particularly bottles of potable liquid of the currently sold and used one and two liter sizes and larger.
A corrugated paperboard carton approximately 14 inches long and 10 inches wide will contain 12 one liter bottles standing up and closely packed together in rows, but since such a bottle is approximately 11 inches tall the carton would have to be more than 11 inches tall to completely enclose a cluster of these bottles.
Since the packaging industry and its customers are obviously interested in economy in the use of packaging material it has been found desirable to package for instance 12 one liter bottles in a tray which is only about 4 inches tall. To package 8 two liter bottles the tray type container must be 18 inches long, 9 inches wide and preferably just under 5 inches high.
But problems arise in the use of such shallow containers. If the ends and particularly the sides are not strongly reinforced, they tend to spread apart allowing the bottles to wobble around loosely, a particular disadvantage when it is attempted to stack trays of bottles one upon another, the loose bottles failing to provide adequate support for the containers above so that the stacked up containers tend to fall.
It is accordingly the general object of this invention to provide a tray type carton for packaging fairly large bottles which is low enough in height to provide real economy of material, and which can be made from a substantially rectangular and thus economical one piece blank which is cut and scored in such a way as to provide various features for substantial reinforcement in an erected carton. These desired features include means to prevent the sides of the carton from spreading and allowing the bottles to become loose in the container and also to provide dunnage, i.e., padding to separate half of the bottles in the container from the other half so as to keep them tightly packed together in an embracing containment.